Robert Wise

In 1942, Wise was assigned to edit producer Val Lewton's horror film THE
CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE when Lewton fired first-time director Gunther
Fritsch three weeks into filming and asked Wise to complete the production.
Though inexperienced working with actors, Wise was anxious for the
opportunity to direct, and the film's eventual success established Wise as a
member of RKO's stable of in-house
directors. Most of his films for RKO
were relatively low-budget, at first because he was a fledgling director,
but later because RKO fell on hard
times in the post-war years, and even its A-level productions were B-movies
by the standards of many of the other big studios.

With little regard for prestige, Wise selected projects whose stories
interested him and often took an atypical approach to filming them.
BLOOD ON THE MOON (1948) for example, is a western which, interestingly,
takes place primarily at night, providing Wise with the opportunity to use
shadowy film-noir lighting and photography not usually seen in outdoor
stories.

Never
a fan of "message" films, as his career progressed, Wise nevertheless began
making movies whose stories harbored a broader significance. Besides
being an entertaining sci-fi film about an alien named Klaatu who demonstrates
the power of beings from beyond Earth by neutralizing electricity all over the
world, halting the planet and all its activity, THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
(1951) also contains a warning about the enormous destructive power of nuclear
power and atomic energy.

Music Clip THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL:

Featuring a host of big-name stars, including
Jean Simmons,
Paul Newman,
Joan Fontaine, Piper
Laurie and Sanda Dee as well as an Oscar-nominated screenplay by Robert
Anderson, UNTIL THEY SAIL (1957) explores the evolving war-time morality of
four sisters living alone in New Zealand and struggling to maintain normalcy
while all the men in their lives are away fighting World War II. Wise's
unobtrusive direction of UNTIL THEY SAIL allows the very character-driven
story and the actresses' performances to take center stage without becoming
melodramatic or overbearing, and in many ways demonstrates his increasing level
of comfort dealing with the personal, rather than technical, side of movie
storytelling.

Wise was finally vaulted into the strata of major Hollywood filmmakers with
the success of WEST SIDE STORY
(1961), a groundbreaking movie musical adapted from Leonard Bernstein and
Stephen Sondheim's popular Broadway stage show which won a record ten Academy
Awards including two for Wise, Best Director and Best Picture of the year.
Having recently tried his hand at producing his own films,
WEST SIDE STORY was Wise's
first musical assignment since becoming a director and a project he actually
co-directed with the stage show's choreographer
Jerome Robbins. As
had been the case in his editing days, Wise was brought in on the project by
friend and executive producer Walter Mirisch who felt movie novice
Robbins needed an
experienced filmmaker by his side who would guide him without stifling the
innovative style Robbins
had demonstrated in the stage production. Starring two non-musical
screen actors, Richard Beymer and
Natalie Wood as the story's modern-day Romeo and Juliet, WEST SIDE STORY
brought the movie musical on location to an extent never before seen in
Hollywood, with gritty, realistic sets and scenes filmed on location in New
York City. The critical and commercial success of
WEST SIDE STORY gave Wise
the opportunity to choose his own projects from among many promising scripts
attached to ample budgets at major studios throughout Hollywood.

Though not a film Wise originally intended to make, THE SOUND OF MUSIC
(1965) was in many ways the crowing achievement of Wise's directorial
career, earning him two more Academy Awards, the Irving Thalberg Award for
lifetime achievement in film production, and the distinction of having
directed one of the most popular movies ever made. The story of a
rebellious nun who shakes up the household of a retired sea captain when she
arrives to look after his seven children, THE SOUND OF MUSIC
was, like WEST SIDE STORY,
adapted from a popular Broadway musical, but story-wise, it was everything
WEST SIDE STORY was not --
clean and sunny instead of dark and gritty, fanciful rather than soberly
realistic, optimistic instead of tragic. In fact, Wise's challenge in
making THE SOUND OF MUSIC
was primarily to keep the story grounded and its characters credible, lest
the stair-stepped singing children, kindly nuns and lush Austrian locales
douse the story too heavily in cloying sentiment. Aided by a number of
important script changes made by screenwriter Ernest Lehman and an earnest
leading performance by
Julie Andrews, Wise succeeded in creating a dramatic and heart-warming
feel-good movie that charmed American audiences during the social upheaval of
the mid-1960s and has since enchanted audiences world-wide in every succeeding
generation.